"The major partnership," announced in May, "will include funding for archaeological preservation of the historic Al Fao region in the southern part of Saudi Arabia, and an exchange of expertise on heritage and museums, archaeology, antiquities, cultural festivals, and modern culture. … Previous partnerships with France, Germany, and the U.K, took place before the murder of Khashoggi. Yet...
The Belgian government has dragged its feet - so "a group of Belgian experts have drafted a set of restitution guidelines for dealing with the nation’s colonial collections." - Artnet
And it's not — not just — the Trocks and RuPaul's Drag Race. The latter, however, by its popularity and creativity, does seem to have created space for dancers and choreographers, even high-profile ones, to shake off the rigid gender expectations that have held sway in dance and to experiment with costuming, make-up, and gender-neutral movement and roles. -...
Other cities are thinking big: Chicago's Arts 77 has $60 million for individual artists and arts organizations. "City departments from parks and rec to libraries, community development, streets, and schools would all participate. ... New York City has set aside $25 million for a municipal jobs program that aims to put 1,500 artists to work in communities across the...
"After furloughing around 80 percent of the chain's workers at once, and having survived the financial crucible of bankruptcy by selling itself to deep-pocketed backers, the company is poised to make good on its grandest ambitions to date. Such expansion, though, comes with a subtle but undeniable shift in corporate culture." - Vulture
Is the theatre industry training too many students? The pandemic sure made it seem so. "There is a vital need for creative practice and an equally critical need to earn a living. It’s not a binary consideration, but one that increasingly feels antithetical." - The Stage (UK)
The Cornwall-based company, a frequent visitor to the US whose production of Brief Encounter was nominated for Tony and Olivier Awards, said in a statement that it was financially stable, but that "recent changes in artistic leadership raised questions as to whether Kneehigh could sustain their vision going forward." Founding artistic director Mike Shepherd had resigned in March after...
An archaeologist noticed small cuts in an ancient wall - and the reward was a tomb that was used from the 4th to the 1st century B.C.E. The tomb "contained two urns filled with cremated remains as well as the bones of an adult and the articulated skeleton of a young child laid on its back. Artifacts such as...
"Authors have little interest in writing them, editors have little interest in publishing them, and — though the hypothesis has yet to be tested — it's widely assumed that readers would have little interest in buying them. In many ways, the dynamic represents a microcosm of the current political moment: Facing a new president whose relative dullness is his...
Jersey City, NJ — which would, if not for the state boundary, be like Brooklyn, since it is directly across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan, to which Jersey City is connected by subway trains. (In fact, this new museum will be right smack next to a station for those trains, so there's no excuse that it will be...
"The $7 million lawsuit … alleges that Dirk Obbink stole 32 items from the Egyptian Exploration Society at the University of Oxford's Sackler Library and sold them to Hobby Lobby, the nationwide arts and crafts chain owned by an evangelical Christian family," which was trying to rapidly assemble a collection for the Museum of the Bible, which it opened...
" which has also received contributions from the Ford Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, will provide up to 2,400 artists with a no-strings-attached monthly income and will endow 300 full-time salaried positions at small- and mid-size arts organizations across the state." - ARTnews
Zachary Woolfe: "There are more of them than ever, and they go by a variety of titles: assistant, associate, fellow, resident. Almost every major orchestra has at least one, … a far more diverse group in which women and musicians of color have found success in recent years. … The question now is how soon they will enter...
"'We were informed that no political story is allowed,' says Emily*, an RTHK employee who, along with others interviewed for this article, asked for anonymity to speak freely. 'We think it's kind of funny because what isn't a political story now?'" - The Guardian
Three members of the national company's governing body (reportedly the three with the most experience with and connections within the industry) stepped down in May. One of them has since spoken up to refute speculation about specific reasons for their departure, but his explanation is less than entirely clear: "What I saw was a huge upswelling of discontent and...
